The Red Reign: The True Story of an Adventurous Year in RussiaDurland, Kellogg
History
The Red Reign: The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia
Durland, Kellogg
Russia -- Politics and government -- 1894-1917
On the fourth night she was also beaten. She was weak and faint; it
seemed to her that she was dying. Had she not been a girl with a
splendid constitution she could never have lived through this
long-continued torture. The blows were raining fast; the fiends
pinched her and pulled her hair. Suddenly Green ordered his men to
stop, and for a few minutes she was left to lie quietly on the
table. Then she was dragged on the floor and put on her back. Her
executioners began kicking her with their boots. They stamped on
her chest, on her abdomen; they trampled on her face. She bled from
the mouth. She did not cry out; she had no more strength; she
seemed silently dying.
* * * * *
In this condition she was taken back into her cell and the prison
_feldsher_ (nurse and orderly) was called to her. Her face
presented a shapeless mass of red and blue bruises. The eyes were
closed by an enormous swelling; the cheeks, chin, and mouth were a
big bruised mass.... For two months she hovered between life and
death, but youth conquered, and she slowly began to recover. At the
end of two months she began to walk a little. All this time no one
was admitted to her, as the government was afraid to let her
relatives see her in the condition she was in. That was to be kept
a secret, not to escape from the prison walls into the outer world,
so it would not cause any stir, as did Spiradonova’s case.
An acquaintance of the writer’s met her after six months had elapsed, in
a northern prison, where she had been taken when she began to walk a
little. This acquaintance gave his impression of her. At the first
moment he thought that she was an elderly woman with an enormously large
face of indefinitely outlined features. The face was pale except where
covered with red and bluish spots.
But her eyes--her eyes spoke for themselves. Looking into them, he was
dumbfounded--there was so much suffering, so much sadness in those eyes!
He understood that this old woman must have lived through some great
calamity in life, something enormous, some disaster that is beyond human
endurance. He tried to engage her in conversation.
He learned then what this seemingly elderly woman had gone through. She
was aged not by years, but by unbelievable tortures. She is not an
elderly woman, but a young, beautiful girl who has been maimed and
broken by suffering. She told with tears in her eyes that her brother
was shot after being tortured, without having gone through any form of
trial, solely upon the behest of Governor-general Scallon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account